Thursday, April 03, 2014

Blog, Feet, Music

I really have been shamelessly neglecting this blog of late, and, as always seems to be the case with such things, the longer I neglect it, the harder it is to motivate myself to actually post something. So I'm going to try a little experiment here: for the rest of April, I'm going to try to post at least something every day. Most likely it'll be a bunch of weird, random thoughts and boring details about my life -- you have been warned! -- but at least it'll be something, and it'll get me back into the habit.

So, today's weird random thought/boring life detail starts with my feet. I have flat feet, and for a long time, I suffered from some really awful, and increasingly continuous, bouts of plantar fasciitis. (Aka stabbing foot pain.) I finally went to see a podiatrist about it a couple of years ago, and he set me up with some custom-molded orthotic shoe inserts that helped immensely. Since then, I've had occasional very brief recurrances, but nothing remotely like what I was suffering before.

Except now it seems to be coming back, at least in my left foot. So far, it's intermittent, and mild enough that it's more annoying than debilitating, but the fact that it keeps coming back is worrying. I'm not sure if my foot's changed somehow -- it actually feels like that might be true -- or if it's due to the insert having become worn and cracked and maybe not holding my foot rigid enough anymore, or what. I'm hoping I don't have to go back to the podiatrist, not least because I'm never sure if my insurance will cover this stuff. It did last time, despite my policy pretty much explicitly saying it wouldn't, but who knows if I'll get that lucky twice? I have a slightly superstitious fear of calling the insurance company and checking in advance, for fear that'll make them say no.

For the moment, I'm sort of hoping it's just a weird, random flare-up and will go away on its own. Being off my feet for a while after my surgery next month might help. I also have some stretching exercises that help, but the problem with those is forcing myself to do them. My brain apparently thinks that six minutes of leaning against a wall and stretching while watching the clock to time how long to hold position is the most unbelievably, tortuously boring thing imaginable. Like a kid wheedling for five more minutes before bedtime, some part of my mind keeps repeatedly whining at me to put off doing it just a little longer, pleeeeeese!, often with the result that I never get around to doing it at all.

But I really need to make with the self-discipline and just get the damned things done. Listening to music while I'm doing it helps with the boredom factor a bit, fortunately. Especially when I put my iPod on random shuffle and it comes up with weird, weird things. This morning while I was doing the stretches, it played me a medley of Queen songs in Japanese. Which is kind of weird by itself, but what makes it even more so is that I had no idea I had a medley of Queen songs in Japanese on my iPod. I am, in fact, 99% sure I'd never even heard that before. I mean, I think I would have remembered that.

Well, maybe being curious enough about what it'll come up for me next is enough to motivate me to keep on doing the exercises. I can only hope.

Plantar fasciitis is awful :( I went through bouts of it after I over-worked myself running a few years ago. (by which I mean, overworked for me, which would be rather mild for anyone else and not even breaking a sweat for a real athlete). The doctor suggested some rigid inserts (non-custom) from the pharmacy across the street, and while I was dubious, they did actually work pretty well. I get mild flare-ups from time to time but it's manageable. There was one time I got a cortisone injection for it; I don't know what that is *supposed* to do, but my guess is that it is not supposed to make your foot hurt like 5x worse than the plantar fasciitis did. So I don't recommend that route!

It is really terrible. I particularly live in fear of it because I love walking. It's the only real form of exercise I get -- because it's the only form I can reliably motivate myself to do -- and there are certain kinds of thinking I do best if I do them while talking a good, long walk. And that isn't particularly doable if you're likely to be in agony five minutes in.

I'm glad I haven't needed a cortisone injection so far. I'm really hoping I continue not to, especially if it sometimes does that instead!